


As A Candle In the Dark

by romangold



Category: jacksepticeye, markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - High School, Bullying, Demon Summoning, Gen, M/M, No Romance, Not Septiplier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 04:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4550232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romangold/pseuds/romangold
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack is a teenage student who is not well-liked by any of his peers. He finds himself a loner who spends his days getting publicly beaten and humiliated. And he's through with all of it. His solution? Summon a demon to get back at the bullies for him, and dispose of them permanently. But the creature of hell that appears in Jack's room is...actually a really nice guy?</p>
            </blockquote>





	As A Candle In the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> _"The candle flame gutters. Its little pool of light trembles. Darkness gathers. The demons begin to stir.”_ \- Carl Sagan

They said 16 would be a hard age. 

16 was a famous age. Famous for unrequited love and juicy gossip around the schools, for drama and hardships and picking yourself up and trucking through your troubles.

But, as Jack found, it really wasn't that romantic.

Jack disliked everyone in his school. The only gossip he was aware of were untrue rumors of of himself; about how he worshiped unholy things that shuddered just outside of your window in the night, how there was a reason he was a loner, how they just _knew_ he was always in and out of jail for one reason or another.

Disliked was not a strong enough word.

16 came and went. 17, it turned out, was no better. It was worse. 16 was the time when Jack's classmates found that they could speak and do harm. 17 was when they figured out they could use their physical strength to accomplish the same thing.

Jack was quite used to name-calling. What he was not prepared for was for a pair of hands to shove him from behind in the middle of the hallway. When he thumped to the ground, every student in the hall became silent for a split second, unsure of how to react to the physical violence.

Until someone laughed.

Jack brought his head up, and after one beat, two beats, everyone cracked up. Pointed. Jeered. He disappeared into the nearest classroom until he heard the crowd disperse.

More followed. Tripping. Shoving. Hours spent pounding on locked closet doors, knuckles turned bloody, cheeks stained with tears. He never learned how to keep them from falling. Food thrown at him until he was forced to eat between periods and spend lunch in the library. Hidden. 17 was when Jack became the crybaby. It became a sport to find him, see if you could catch him. If you caught him, he would always limp home with bruises and tear tracks on his cheeks. Blood under his nose, or budding from his lip. Insults in his ears. Threats weighing down his tongue.

17 was when the crybaby had had enough.

The chalk was heavy in his hand as Jack gazed down at the white pentagram on the floor of his room. Since his older siblings had flown the coop, his parents were around less and less often. A loss for the teenager feeling wanted, or needed, but tonight, an empty house was the best kind of house. He was familiar with the process; he had done this twice before. Neither time had worked, but Jack had never needed it to do so as badly as he did now.

He sucked in a deep breath. He winced when it hurt. Even breathing was painful, now. If Jack did this right, though, he wouldn't have to worry about anyone hurting him again.

The bowl containing a cleaned animal bone was placed in the center of the chalk circle. Just so. It had to be perfect. The pocket knife had been sharpened impeccably. It reached the tip of Jack's left pointer finger, hovering just over the skin before pressing down. Sliced forward. Pricked. Blood blossomed and dripped. And fell.

Now was the difficult part. If he didn’t channel his energy, his rage, his want and need for this, it wouldn’t happen.

Jack thought of school. He thought of hands pushing him over, curling into fists and marring his pale flesh, turning it black and blue and drawing blood. He thought of the names he was called, and the death threats and the teachers, bored with his complaints. Jack thought of how furious it made him. He felt it burn through him into his fingertips and ears. His teeth clenched.

His blood fell into the chalk circle. Jack shut his eyes. He had never wanted anything more in his life.

__

"Ad ligandum eos pariter eos coram me."

His blood was anger. Dripping. Down. His blood was hot and heavy, and it fell like Jack did at the hands of his tormentors, not powerful enough to defend himself. Not anymore. Not after the night was through and the sun came up a gory crimson. Nothing meant more to him; he begged for it to work as his pulse sounded loud in his ears.

"You're pretty skinny for a human."

Jack opened his eyes and stared. Brown eyes stared back, twinkling with something Jack couldn't place his finger on.

Not expecting the line from out of thin air, the only thing the teenager could speak was a stuttered,"W...what?" He stepped back to put space between him and the thing he had summoned.

It was...a boy. A teenager. Actually, the thing was Jack's age, and the same height, too. Ebony hair was slicked back to keep off of his long, clean-cut face. The brown eyes were clever, and calm, though they flickered all around the room, as if trying to take in every little detail at once and keep his attention on Jack all at the same time.

"You," the demon answered, sweeping his eyes up and down his summoner with a critical gaze. "You're very skinny. Are humans supposed to look this malnourished?"

Jack shook his head, confused, "Wh- I mean, I'm not-" He caught himself before he forgot about why the creature was there in the first place. "Nevermind that. I'd like to make a deal with you."

"Ah...yes," the demon flashed a bright, white smile, still peering around the room as if searching for something. Jack furrowed his eyebrows a little at this, but said nothing on the subject. "Before we get to that, while we're here..." His eyes moved back to land on the skittish human. "Where are we?"

Jack made a face. "In...my room."

"No, no!" the creature shook his head. "I mean what country?"

"Er, Ireland."

The demon smiled again; it captivated the human, though he didn't know why. He blinked himself out of the stupor. "Ireland!" the creature mused. "Nice little place. Love the accents." His smile changed in a way that made Jack’s ears turn red, his lips twitching. The human wasn’t used to compliments of any sort, but...it felt nice, at any rate. The teenager wondered if this creature had really meant it, or if he was simply playing.

 _Stay focused!_ Jack scolded, though he couldn’t resist also teasing a bit.

"Well," Jack countered,"good thing I summoned a creature of hell. Couldn't ask for anything hotter than what I've received." He stepped back and sat on the edge of his bed, looking back to find that demon was...was he _chuckling?_ He didn't know it would be so easy to make a demon laugh, of all things.

The eyes were moving about again, the mention of the deal falling to the wayside when Jack noticed furrowing brows and twitching fingers. “Sorry, but is there something wrong with this?” 

The demon’s head snapped back over to his summoner, confusion alight on his young face. “Wrong?” he repeated evenly. “Nothing’s wrong. I came, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but you keep looking around like I’ve got severed heads nailed to my walls.”

Now Jack was sure there was a small flush on the creature’s cheeks. “No, no, nothing’s wrong. I just...” His eyes focused on the poster Jack had hung crooked on his wall. The human stared, waiting for him to finish.

After a few seconds of nervous silence, he explained. “This, er, is actually my first summoning,” the demon admitted, eyes now on the floor and the pentagram he stood in, words coming out in rapid succession. “I’ve never seen a human dwelling before. Or a human.” Jack almost laughed. It was kind of funny. It was kind of _cute._

“Well...” Jack thought aloud. “Do you know anything about humans? Like, entertainment? Music?”

The demon cocked his head to the side. “Music?” he parroted. “As in...noise?”

“It’s better than noise!” Jack assured, reaching back and grabbing his small radio. He switched it on; a roaring heavy metal song blared, confusing the creature trapped in the chalk circle.

“Is that music?” he asked, not displeased with the genre. Jack nodded, and the demon smiled. “It’s cool!”

Jack turned down the volume and placed the radio to the side. “I’ve never actually summoned a demon before,” he confessed, getting back to the point. “But I know how this works. You do something for me, and I give you my soul.”

The creature’s eyes flicked up to the human from where they had been focused on the radio. “Yep,” he said, then squinted. “What is that?”

“What?”

Because the deal had not been made yet, and Jack hadn’t entered the pentagram himself, the demon could only point. “That,” he repeated, finger zoned in on Jack’s neck. The human looked down to find a small yet disgusting burn sticking out of his shirt collar, obvious against his pale skin. He remembered the incident with no trouble: Some of the kids after school had held him down and put out their cigarette on his collarbone a few days ago, laughing when he screamed and thrashed.

“Oh. That’s part of the deal I want to make.” Without even thinking, Jack lifted his shirt to display the creative array of injuries and bruises marring his torso. “I got these from the people I go to school with,” he explained, turning around so his bare back showed as well. “And I don’t want to have to deal with them anymore.” He paused, back still turned on the demon. “I want them dead.”

Without even a split second of hesitation, he heard the summoned creature’s hardened voice from behind him. “Consider it done.”

The human dropped his shirt and turned back around. To his surprise, he found that the demon’s eyes had narrowed- they flashed as black as his hair once before returning to the brown irises; his hands had balled into fists. Jack stiffened when his eyes locked on the latter, too used to it meaning he would be used as a punching bag.

The demon blinked himself out of whatever stupor he had put himself in when he noticed Jack’s horror. Confused, he followed his gaze; upon looking down, the demon jolted a bit at his realization of the issue, and straightened out his hands.

“Hey, are you okay?” the creature asked. When the human blinked rapidly and locked eyes with him, he continued speaking, moving his arms out so they were visible but not threatening. “Hey, I’m not here to hurt you or anything, yeah?” The human relaxed and nodded. The creature he had summoned quirked his lips up in a small smile. “Sorry if I scared you there.”

Jack, now undisturbed, smirked. “The demon from hell who I’ve asked to murder several children is sorry that he frightened me?”

The boy trapped in the circle stuck out his chin. “Yes I am!” he defended. “I’m not here to pick on you, I’m here to strike a bargain. You’ve already had enough bullying for a lifetime, anyway. But that’ll all be over as soon as I’m done with those kids, trust me.”

And Jack felt himself smile. It had been a long time since he had a reason to. “My name is Jack, but the way,” he said. 

The demon smiled back. “You can call me Mark.”

They smiled for a minute, simply glad to be doing so before Jack remembered what came next. The happiness slipped off of his face.

Mark frowned at this. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Well...now is when I give you my soul.” The human stood up, suddenly having second thoughts. He didn’t know how it worked. Would it hurt? What would he become without a soul? He stepped closer to the pentagram. His hands trembled. He and the demon were inches apart.

Mark didn’t look all that certain anymore. “Well...” he contemplated,“...I don’t have to take your soul, per se.”

Jack’s brain paused. “What?” he inquired.

The demon rubbed at the back of his neck. “It doesn’t always have to be your soul...it could just be something you cherish, or something that I want. Something from this world that I can’t find in another. Usually that means your soul. But...” Mark’s eyes locked on Jack’s and he grinned, teeth showing.

“I can always make an exception.”

Jack felt his ears grow warm, but he didn’t move back this time. “W-well, what do you want besides my soul?”

Mark’s eyes did not part from Jack’s blue ones as he seemed to muse upon what could be as precious to him as a soul. Then, his eyes moved to stare at something just past the human’s ear, fixated on something on the bed.

“That.”

Jack turned his head, following Mark’s gaze. He turned back to him.

“You want my radio.”

“Yes.”

“Instead of my soul.”

“Yes.”

Though he was reluctant to part with his only source of music, the teenager realized he would literally never get a better bargain than this. Jack went to his bed, picked up his radio, and held it out to the demon. “Alright. Deal.”

With the agreement made, Mark was now able to stretch out of the pentagram. He took the little device from the human, listening happily to the music it emitted. “You won’t need to worry about those sadists anymore, Jack,” he soothed. “They won’t know what hit ‘em.”

Jack nodded. “Thank you.” Though he didn’t wish it, he knew that they were through tonight. “You may leave, Mark.”

Mark smiled. “Of course.” He blinked. “Oh, and one more thing, Jack.”

The human hadn’t moved, and asked,“Yes?”

Reaching forward with soft movements and delicate fingers, Mark took Jack’s wrist and lifted it, holding it between them. Jack’s finger still bled some. He had forgotten about it until now. He didn’t stop Mark, curious as to what he was doing as his heart ricocheted around his throat and chest.

The demon looked at the pricked skin thoughtfully before blinking hard. When he pulled away, the wound was healed, and Jack’s body was tingling.

“I hope this isn’t the last time you summon me, Jack,” he admitted,“whether we make a deal or not. You're a nice guy.”

The human gave a little smile and said,“It better not be.” The summoned one smiled back.

Jack blinked. When his eyes were open again, Mark was gone, and so was his radio.


End file.
